Saturday, November 14, 2015

Health Status of Dalits in India

From EPW (usually available online for 4 weeks):
"Despite involving them in the most
hazardous job of manual scavenging,
the scavengers are not provided with
necessary safety items/equipment. The
mandated safety items to be provided to
them include: (1) three pairs of sarees,
blouses and petticoats for women, and
three pairs of pants and half-sleeved
shirts and a cap or headgear, etc, (2) pair
of slippers, (3) masks, (4) hand gloves,
(5) an adequate quantity of soaps for
bathing and washing their clothes,
(6) brooms, (7) a pair of ankle-high rubber
shoe and for a sweeper, a pair of slippers
every year, (8) in the cold season, they are
provided with one pair of woollen clothes
as sweaters or jackets every alternate
year, (9) raincoat and caps are provided
to the scavengers in every rainy and
winter season. Every scavenger employed
in formal sectors, such as municipal
corporations and village panchayats, is
entitled to all these safety items.
Though it is mandatory for all government
offi ces to provide the scavengers
with all these safety items, in the Gujarat
study it was found that of the 2,456
identifi ed scavengers, only 9.1% (223)
affi rmed that they had received at least
some of these items. As high as 91% were
found to have received no such items to
protect themselves from the possible
diseases and physical injuries while
performing their job (Darokar and Beck
2006: 93)"